Walsh-Jennings Reveals Pregnancy on Today Show

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Sept. 25, 2012) – U.S. beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh-Jennings, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and husband Casey Jennings announced Monday that she is pregnant on the Today Show on NBC.

Walsh-Jennings told the Today Show’s Matt Lauer that she was pregnant while she was competing at the Olympic Games in London with partner Misty May-Treanor. The pair won their third straight Olympic gold medal while not losing a match and only dropping one set.

“When I was throwing my body around fearlessly and going for gold for our country, I was pregnant,” Walsh-Jennings said. “Today, I am 11-weeks pregnant and feeling pregnant.”

London was not the first time Walsh-Jennings has competed and won gold while pregnant.

Walsh-Jennings has said that she became pregnant with her first son, Joey, shortly after her gold medal victory at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Immediately following Beijing, Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor won the 2008 Manhattan Beach Open. In October 2008, Walsh-Jennings and Nicole Branagh won Dubai Open on the FIVB World Tour.

Joey was born in 2009 and Walsh-Jennings’s second son, Sundance, was born in 2010. The new baby is due in April 2013.

Casey Jennings, who is also a beach volleyball player, said the couple has “a strong feeling that it’s a little girl,” but that he would be happy with another son as well.

“I don’t mind either way, I’m happy with a healthy baby either way. The two boys have been such a blessing that to have either one would be great.”

Walsh-Jennings said she knew she was pregnant while competing in London and that the couple had started trying while they were in Gstaad, Switzerland for the 1to1 Energy Grand Slam on July 2-7. Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor won their first gold medal of the season at that event.

“I just felt like it was going to take us a while to get pregnant, for some reason,” she said. “We were in Gstaad, Switzerland, one of our favorite places in the world, and just decided to get going on the process. Apparently we’re really fertile.”

After the Olympics, Walsh-Jennings went straight to Poland for the Mazury Orlen Grand Slam, part of the FIVB World Tour, where she competed with Branagh and finished ninth.

Walsh-Jennings has said that she would like to compete at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.